BIVEM – What is it about?

The Berlin Interdisciplinary Network for Multilingualism BIVEM is a nationwide network and platform for the exchange of experiences and encounters of scientists and practitioners in the fields of multilingualism, language acquisition, language support and language diagnostics, as well as pedagogy, didactics, education and educational research. In addition to basic research, this enables mutual transfer between science and practice, especially in the field of early education (pre-school and primary school age).
The network was founded in 2011 by the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) and supported by the Berlin Senate until 2016. Subsequently, BIVEM became an integral part of ZAS.

Service & Transfer

BIVEM has several services for parents and educational professionals working with multilingual children. We offer information materials (our flyer series) in several languages, information and training events and counselling on multilingual education and language acquisition in general.

Research

Basic research is an important part of BIVEM’s work including two long-term studies in which the effects of various factors such as language support measures, the first language, the length of exposure as well as the age at the beginning of language exposure have on the language development of multilingual kindergarten and primary school children are investigated. The development of narrative and literacy skills from preschool to primary school is also investigated. The study results have been presented at various conferences (Presentations & Posters) and published in scientific journals (Publications).

Current

Media articles

In this section you will find various media articles on the subject of multilingualism, which were created with BIVEM participation or are recommended by BIVEM.